Part 60 (2/2)
His rough fist closed and his heavy jaw came together with a grinding sound.
”Waal, you're ruined--so am I--and my brothers and all our people, too.
There's nothin' left now except to die--and I'll do it!”
The girl clapped her hands.
”I wish I could go with you!”
He turned back toward his camp fire with a shake of his unkempt head.
”Die fighting for us!” Jennie cried.
He waved his black powder-stained hand:
”That I will, little girl!”
The rough figure rose in the unconscious dignity with which he waved his arm and pledged his word to fight to the death. War had leveled all ranks.
The talk on the road was all of burning homes, buildings demolished, famine, murder, and death.
Jennie suddenly found herself singing a lot of Methodist Camp Meeting hymns with an utterly foolish happiness surging through her heart.
She led off with ”_Better days are coming._” Mandy was still too scared to sing the chorus of this first hymn but she joined softly in the next.
It was one of her favorites:
”_I hope to die shoutin'--the Lord will provide._”
The old man driving the cart kept time with a strange undertone of interpolation all his own. The one he loved best he repeated again and again.
”I'm a runnin'--a runnin' up ter glory!”
How could she be happy amid a scene of such desolation and suffering?
She tried to reproach herself and somehow couldn't be sorry. A vision of something more wonderful than houses and land, goods and chattels, slaves and systems of government, had made her heart beat with sudden joy and her eyes sparkle with happiness. It was only the picture of a dark slender young fellow who had never spoken a word of love that flashed before her. And yet the vision had wrought a spell that transformed the world.
The guns no longer echoed behind them. A courier came das.h.i.+ng from the city at sunset asking the people to return to their homes.
Two old men had rowed out to the war s.h.i.+ps during the bombardment. They called to the commander of the flags.h.i.+p as they pushed their skiff alongside:
”There are no men in town, sir--you're only killing women and children!”
The commander leaned over the rail of his gunboat.
”I'm sorry, gentlemen. I thought, of course, your town had been evacuated before your men were fools enough to fire on my marines. I've sh.e.l.led your streets to intimidate them.”
The firing ceased. The order to sh.e.l.l the city had been caused by four guerillas firing on a yawl which was about to land without a flag of truce. Their volley killed and wounded three.
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